Music previews: jazz and blues for the holidays
Bili Redd, the featured vocalist with the Richard Sherman Trio. Photo by Tom Sanders
Jazz for the holidays
The best kept musical secret in the South Bay for the last two years has been the ongoing residency of the Richard Sherman Trio featuring Bili Redd at the Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes Estates.
Those in the know flock to The Living Room – the large room with couches and a crackling fireplace near the main lobby bar – every Friday and Saturday night from 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. to listen to an extraordinary group of musicians at the very height of their powers. Sherman has been the South Bay’s resident jazz pianist for 46 years and running, but of late he has assembled his finest band yet – featuring bassist Adam Cohen (whose experience includes playing with Ernie Watts, Ray Charles, and Englebert Humperdinck), drummer Jon Stuart (Ed Thigpen, Louis Bellson) and three-time Grammy-nominated, Gospel Hall of Fame inductee vocalist Bili Redd (see an upcoming Beach magazine profile of this magisterial singer).
“The caliber of musicianship is extraordinary,”Sherman says. “I have the best players in the city with me.”
The Richard Sherman Trio plays every Friday and Saturday, including Christmas Eve and a special New Year’s Eve show (8:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.) that also includes an optional seafood buffet at the Catalina Grill (the music is always free; the buffet is $89).
Kirk Fletcher plays Café Boogaloo Friday night.
Christmas blues
Kirk Fletcher started coming to Café Boogaloo as a young disciple of the blues way back in 1995, when he was just a teenage kid from Compton who’d grown up gospel and had just embarked on his education in the blues. Former owner Steve Roberts took a liking to the kid, as did nearly every musician who heard him play. As a result, Fletcher studied under, played and toured some of the greatest blues legends of our time, including Junior Watson (who would bring the young Fletcher to his house to drink tequila, smoke cigars, and trade guitar licks), Charlie Musselwhite, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Fletcher has never lost touch with his roots, however, and he regularly returns to where it all began, back at the Boogaloo.
Kirk Fletcher plays Café Boogaloo Friday night from 9 to 11:30 p.m.
Andy Walo plays Starboard Attitude Saturday night.
Christmas blues, part two
He was a skinny pale Swedish kid playing a Les Paul guitar at a club in Copenhagen, Denmark, and he was ripping it up. He was playing the blues, red hot.
The late great Albert Collins’ band walked into the club. They were among the best blues players in the world – the musical equivalent of gunslingers – and they stopped in their tracks and beheld Andy Walo. The men just stood and watched. When Walo took a break, they walked up to him.
“You better come toChicagowith us,” one of the men said.
“What?” Walo said. “Hey, I don’t want to go to Chicago. I’m making good money here, I got lots of girlfriends, good gigs…and I don’t even drive.”
“Don’t worry, man,” the man said. “My brother is a cop. We’ll get you a car.”
Thus began the blues odyssey of Andy Walo. He has of late become the reigning blues guitarist of theRedondo Beachpier, playing regularly (and ferociously) at Starboard Attitude, where he has acquired an almost cult following among local blues lovers. His style isn’t exactly for blues purists, however – Walo cites influences including Led Zepplelin, Hendrix, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath
“I hate blues Nazi’s,” Walo says. “I can’t stand blues snobs. ‘Wait a minute, that is not John Lee Hooker 1953! That is rock n’ roll! Call the blues police! I’m like, ‘Dude, I have played more blues that you have ever heard in your life. What, I got to prove something to you?’ I love the blues, too, but you got to mix it up. You got to be true to yourself.”
The Andy Walo Trio plays Starboard Attitude 3 to 7 p.m. Christmas Eve and at a special New Year’s Eve party at the club beginning at 8 p.m.